An interview was conducted with me and my co-author on the topic of the benefits of publishing together after we won the Best Paper Award at Corvinus University of Budapest.
Original interview (Hungarian) available here
The winning paper is also accessible online (Hungarian): https://marcellgranat.github.io/yieldcurve/
Dorottya Szabó entered the TDK (Scientific Student Conference) for the second time, and Marcell Granát entered with a total of eight papers in recent years. Even as a freshman, he submitted a paper, and from then on there was no stopping: last year he entered five, three of which won first place. “It was really like writing papers as a full-time job,” Marcell recalled of the previous year. He considers it very good that he is starting the competition from the beginning because he has improved a lot. “I probably wouldn’t even recognize my first paper, because I did not have any knowledge of methodology. In my third year, I thought for months about how to write a good TDK, and during my master’s years I was already able to build the structure of the thesis routinely, all I had to do was choose a topic,” said Marcell.
Dorka met such “legendary” people at the FAKT (college) vocational college who almost poured TDK theses out of themselves. He believes that this example is very motivating. He participated in his first TDK competition as an undergraduate, and named his thesis. It gave him confidence that he could present his thesis in front of a professional jury before the defence. “The tutors are there to help. If anywhere, that’s where we can count on the most constructive comments. This environment makes it easier for the students to take on and present their work with courage, this is a very useful experience during the university years”, emphasized Dorottya.
The topic of their first joint TDK thesis was raised by Dorka in a joint Messenger group, and Marcell joined in a short time, so they started crisis analysis based on yield curves. Dorottya Szabó and Marcell Granát’s joint dynamic worked so well that since then they prepared the papers to be submitted together for every joint class. It was not difficult to figure out the division of work, Dorka was responsible for the literature review and writing the text, Marcell supplemented the basic ideas and wrote the codes, and the summary was prepared together. “It helps a lot if I can work with a co-author because I can come up with new ideas until the last moment. Alone, I would overthink it, but in a team, they also remind me of an important factor, such as the deadline,” Marcell mentions with a laugh. Dorka can also write codes and understands the methodology, but she prefers to work with someone who is familiar with it. He likes the process of writing the most.
It is customary in the college to which Dorka belongs that anyone can present their thesis before the final round of the TDK. “As a freshman, I listened with sparkling eyes to the seniors, whose knowledge completely amazed me. Years later, when I had the opportunity to present my work, I saw the same amazement in the first-year students. It was an extremely good feeling that I was able to inspire younger people in the academic circles,” recalled Dorottya.
Marcell applied to be an economic policy demonstrator as a demonstrator (undergraduate teacher assistant at Corvinus) when he asked László Andor what skills are needed to be a good researcher. The head of the department at the time called over the assistant professor András Olivér Németh from the next room, with whom they discussed the issue for about twenty minutes. “András finally told us to study statistics and econometrics, because without these skills we can only describe something that someone has already described. I think this is also the key to a good TDK: a good idea and a proper methodology,” said Marcell.
Marcell does not need to explain the advantages of the TDK in detail, as he received job offers four times thanks to his papers. Those who really deep dive into a topic will confidently return to the previous methodology years later. “Once you’ve applied a time series analysis model for a paper, you won’t be afraid at work later on if you’re entrusted with this task,” detailed Marcell, who thinks it’s worth making our TDK thesis public because it’s effective on the labour market and can make us stand out from the crowd. According to Dorka, TDK is also useful for those who want an academic career. Working together is a good opportunity to get to know the supervisors, and it is also an advantage for doctoral school if someone has been successful in the competition.